When your home is host to a ghost

Laine Crosby (top) says that ghosts are everywhere, and it's better to just leave them alone!

Buying a home can be scary.

The great big numbers on the checks are just the beginning. Who knows whether that dream home was once someone else's nightmare? Who knows what lurks in the basement, in the shed, what once lived, and maybe even died, in some long-forgotten crawl space? Who knows whether otherworldly occupants still roam the halls and creep through the crawlspaces, happily haunting homeowners with their weird night noises and inexplicable lights, drafts and moving objects?

Alex and Heather Pikas live in Silver Spring, in a house where strange things happen. Strange lights cast weird shadows; objects move mysteriously from one place to another, people who can't be seen knock on the door or call out from the yard. Sometimes a baby cries – not their own little girl, but a baby who disappears or morphs into something otherworldly. Sometime the Pikases would catch themselves in strange places, doing strange things.

It was just like a horror movie.

Which makes sense, because Alex Pikas is a director, and his wife Heather is an actress, and their home – an otherwise unremarkable rambler set on a wooded lot on Copley Lane – is the star of an independent film that was shot on a shoestring budget last year.

"It's like a really advanced home movie," says Pikas. "This is not a bash-and-slash four kids go camping in the woods' movie."

Which is one way to describe the last set-in-Montgomery County horror flick, 1999's "The Blair Witch Project." Pikas says his film "Copley: An American Fairytale" is "an elegant, intelligent supernatural thriller…It's the kind of film you can watch more than once and pick up more and more details and references each time."

There are references to other horror movies – "Psycho" and "The Grudge" get nods – but no blood and barely any violence.

"Gore, to me, is not scary," says Pikas. "It's not fascinating; it's unappealing. We're showing the world we can make a ghost story without all that."

Ghost whisperer

But you can't make a ghost story without a ghost – which is where Laine Crosby comes in.

Crosby is a an investigative medium, a "ghost whisperer" who used to work in marketing and public relations in Atlanta before moving to an old house in Derwood in 2004.

"It sort of happened to me overnight," she explains. "I'm just a mom who woke up one morning and started talking to dead people.

"It can happen!"

Crosby's surprised it doesn't happen more frequently. She sees spirits all around her, listens to their stories, tries to help them "cross over" when she can.

"Every place has ghosts," she says. "There are areas – the Civil War battlefields at Gettysburg – where you see more … in my house, my yard, it's full of ghosts!"

Crosby's house, a historic building on the site of the old Needwood Plantation, is where her career in the supernatural began.

"When we came here from Atlanta, it was much more quiet," she says. "I could feel energy more. I was able to sense a lot more."

Crosby's able to sense so much she even works with missing persons networks, a job she finds particularly rewarding. The reason she has been given "this gift," she insists, is to help solve crimes.

At first, she says, "I was scared of what was happening to me." It isn't always fun, hanging out with the dead and hearing the sometimes gruesome stories of their passing. Crosby says she "surrendered to it," and made peace with her gift.

"I got used to them," she says. "They're just like you and me." Some are mean; others, nice. Many are just as scared as the living beings they haunt – afraid to move on, concerned about how a possibly vengeful Creator might treat them. Crosby has chosen to take on her ghosts – but reader, she doesn't recommend you try it at home.

"Talking to spirits in your house can make them more active," she warns. "Unless you're ready for things to happen – doors opening and closing – and you can deal with it, don't talk to them and stir things up."

Mysterious ways

But that's just what Alex Pikas did, isn't it? He may not have actually seen a ghost, but he did hear a few noises and feel a few feelings.

"The house has this really cool '50s vibe," he says. "The old lady who used to live here – we bought the house from her son – she was married to a skin doctor. She didn't go out much, and when she did, she always wore a big hat."

But any ghosts you see in the Pikas home are figments of the director's imagination. Why?

"I do like a good ghost story," says Pikas, "but the idea here is to help us transition to our next project."

Because the director, an ad industry veteran who got his start at 15 at the Montgomery County studios on East Gude Drive in Rockville, knew that creating a full-length feature film would be the best way to show potential clients and backers that he has what it takes to make it to the next level.

"Within the industry, I'm known as a visual storyteller," he says. "It's really kind of weird, but there's a following for my two short films."

And he's thinking there might be a following for "Copley," too, with its simple storytelling, artistic filming (he used Panavision cameras and lenses in Super 35mm format) and old-fashioned thriller feel.

"I think it's an intelligent film," he says. "We're coming out of a time of intellectual vacuum – films like Borat' and Jackass.'

"I like to watch the kind of stuff that challenges you as a viewer, something that you can get into."

You can't get into it at a movie theater, however. "Copley" is available online and through Netflix, but there are no plans for a theatrical release.

"It's 72 minutes long, so it's not likely to go theatrical," Pikas explains. "So the way we're distributing it is unique: through Warner Electra Atlantic, the sales arm of Warner Brothers. And we retain the rights forever, which is a nice place for a filmmaker to be."

Just like 801 Copley Lane is a nice place for him to be. Pikas says the neighbors were good-natured about the night shooting and the presence of the crew and equipment during the 31-day shoot. And the film's limited distribution means the house isn't likely to attract attention like "The Amityville Horror" house anytime soon. It's a perfectly nice, normal suburban home.

Still, Pikas should stay out of the shed.

For information on "Copley: An American Fairy Tale," visit www.copleymovie.com. For information on Laine Crosby, visit www.investigativemedium.com.